There is a teaching of Scripture which, at best, is very confusing
to Christian women, and to some is downright challenging -- the
concept of submission to husbands. It is pretty difficult to avoid
the conclusion that the Scriptures teach that within the sphere
of the home the husband is to be the leader and the wife the follower.
She is to be responsive and submissive to his authority. With
the advent of the feminist movement, that pattern, along with
other traditional values, is being attacked and discredited.

This concept is usually very confusing to women. It is somewhat
softened by the fact that in the New Testament there is also the
command to husbands that they are to lead their wives after the
example of Christ himself. The leadership they exert is not to
be tyrannical, not to achieve their own will, but it is to accomplish
the will of God on behalf of their wives. It is also good to know
that men themselves are under authority. None of us can ad-lib
our way through life without being responsible to some authority.
Men are responsible to various spheres of authority -- to government,
to their employer, and ultimately to the Lord himself. As the
Scriptures say, "We are not our own; we are bought with a
price."

A week or so ago I was driving through the hills to Pescadero
quite early in the morning when I saw a hitchhiker with long hair
and coveralls standing out in the fog. I stopped, he got into
the car, and I discovered that he was a girl! Ordinarily I don't
pick up girls. In fact, the whole idea of girls' hitchhiking scares
me to death! But now that she was in the car I couldn't very well
throw her out. We drove a little distance, and she told me she
was a housekeeper in a home in Los Altos, but she lived up in
the mountains. I commented on my own desire to live in the mountains
some day. She said, "Why don't you do it?" I explained
that I wasn't free to do it right now. She was very gentle about
it, but she clearly expressed her feeling that I was too tied
down to my home and job.

I said to her, "You know, there's a principle found in
the Bible: 'You are not your own; you are bought with a price.'
And because I'm a Christian I really don't have the right to do
as I please; I want to do what the Lord wants me to do. I've found
that true freedom, true liberty, lies in doing what the Lord wants.
And I've learned through some very bitter experiences that if
I don't do that, life can get pretty grim indeed."

She looked at me as though I had just dropped in from outer
space! I went on to say that I wasn't alone in this, but that
this is the way Christians look at life. We are not our own; we
are bought with a price. We don't have the right to do as we please;
we're under authority. We drove on a few hundred yards. Then she
asked to be let out. I'm sure she had never encountered anything
like that before in her life. But, you see, none of us are free
in this sense; we are all under authority. As men, our primary
responsibility is to be under the authority of Jesus Christ.

And the Scriptures are very clear that in the realm of the
home wives are to be subject to their husbands. The Scriptures
do not speak about the leadership of women in the fields of politics
or industry or the arts-that is outside the perimeter of biblical
concern. But the home is very much a matter of concern in the
Scripture, and it is in that area that women are to be subject
to their husbands. Now, that is a hard concept, and one which
is much under attack today. And women wonder, because the concept
is so clearly spelled out in Scripture, what their place is to
be in the home. They are to be a helpmate, but what does that
mean? What part can they play in their husband's life? Are they
to be servile, always quiet, never having any part in the growth
and development of their husbands? Is this true also of Christian
sisters in general? Can they have any ministry to their Christian
brothers? Yes, they can!

The Scriptures are very helpful in this regard. There are two
passages in the Old Testament which I find particularly helpful.
One is Proverbs 31, and the other is 1 Samuel 25. As you know,
David's story is told in 1 and 2 Samuel. 2 Samuel is the book
of David's reign. It describes his experiences as king from the
time he was crowned at Hebron until he died some forty years later.
1 Samuel is the book of preparation for David's reign. It was
a time when he learned some very hard lessons.

It is divided into three periods. Chapters 16 and 17 describe
David's experience as a shepherd. Chapter 16 tells us of David's
secret anointing by Samuel at Bethlehem. Chapter 17 tells of his
encounter with Goliath, which we studied a few weeks ago as the
crucial point in David's life during this period (Catalog
No.3055). Chapters 18 through 20 describe his life in Saul's
court. The pivotal experience there was Jonathan's friendship
with David, which made up our last study (Catalog
No.3056). Chapters 21 through 31 describe David's exile as
he was fleeing from Saul. The turning point in David's life during
that period was effected by a woman whose name was Abigail. Her
story, along with that of Nabal her husband, and David, is given
to us in chapter 25. The setting is provided in verse 1.

Then Samuel died; and all Israel gathered
together and mourned for him, and buried him at his house in
Ramah. And David arose and went down to the wilderness of Paran.

Samuel's death and David's flight to the wilderness of Paran
are linked together, as though one were caused by the other. Samuel
had been David's confidant and counselor, the one to whom he had
gone in times of need, probably the only person in Israel who
would stand against Saul. When Samuel died, David realized that
his last hope for reconciliation with Saul was gone. He fled from
Engedi, along the coast of the Dead Sea, because it was too close
for comfort to Saul's headquarters. He fled south to the wilderness
of Paran, the area in the northern part of the Sinai peninsula
where the nation of Israel had wandered for thirty-eight years.
As he flees south the story of Abigail and Nabal takes place:

Now there was a man in Maon whose
business was in Carmel; and the man was very rich, and he had
three thousand sheep and a thousand goats. And it came about
while he was shearing his sheep in Carmel. Now the man's name
was Nabal, and his wife's name way Abigail. And the woman was
intelligent and beautiful I; appearance, but the man was harsh
and evil in his dealings, and he was a Calebite, that David heard
in the wilderness that Nabal was shearing his sheep. So David
sent ten young men, and David said to the young men, "Go
up to Carmel, visit Nabal and greet him in my name; and thus
you shall say, 'Have a long life [L'chaim!
-- if you remember Fiddler On The Roof], peace
be to you, and peace be to your house, and peace be to all that
you have. And now I have heard that you have shearers; now your
shepherds have been with us and we have not insulted them nor
have they missed anything all the days they were in Carmel. Ask
your young men and they will tell you. Therefore let my young
men find favor in your eyes, for we have come on a festive day.
Please give whatever you find at hand to your servants and to
your son David.'"

This paragraph tells us two things. First, it tells us something
of the character of the people involved in the story. Abigail
is described here as a beautiful and intelligent woman. She was
evidently raised in a very secure home, for her name means "the
joy of my father." She was probably so named because she
was the delight of her father. But somewhere along the line she
had become married to Nabal, this churlish individual who is described
here as a harsh man (the Hebrew word means hard, unyielding, unbending,
unteachable) and evil in his dealings, i.e., he was a crooked
businessman. He was very wealthy, but he had achieved his wealth
through unethical means. He was a hard man to live with, unapproachable,
intractable, unteachable.

The author says he was a Calebite, and I wondered why he would
say that about Nabal. Caleb was one of the twelve spies who went
into the promised land with Joshua, the only one who stood with
Joshua in his favorable report, a worthy old warrior who was such
a man of faith that I wondered why he was linked with Nabal. Then
I remembered that the word "Caleb" means "dog."
This is another of those subtle ways the Jews had of attributing
certain characteristics to people. Nabal was dog like shameless
in his behavior. But the real key to the man's character is his
own name, Nabal, which in Hebrew means "fool." He was
a fool.

Now, in the Scriptures a fool is not necessarily a man who
acts ignorantly or foolishly, as we use that term. He is a man
who has rejected the truth about God. As you read Proverbs you
discover that there are only two kinds of people in the world:
wise men, and fools. Wise men are people who respond to the truth
of God in obedience. They fear God and they let the truth live
in their lives. Therefore they are wise. It has nothing to do
with their intelligence of education; it is a moral issue. They
are wise because they behave according to the truth. But a fool
is a man who has rejected the truth. That is why the Psalmist
says, "The fool has said in his heart 'There is no God.'"
It is not an intellectual issue; it is a moral issue. He had not
made room for God in his heart. In the thirty-second chapter of
Isaiah there is a description of the fool:

For a fool speaks nonsense, And his
heart inclines toward wickedness, To practice ungodliness and
to speak error against the lord.

A fool is a man who practices ungodliness. That was Nabal.
You couldn't tell him anything; you couldn't teach him; he wouldn't
listen. He didn't want to hear the truth of God, didn't want to
abide by it. So he is called Nabal, the fool.

Secondly, this paragraph tells us something of David's request
of Nabal. It occurred during the time when they were shearing
sheep. Groups of men who were professional sheep shearers traveled
throughout Palestine and would shear sheep for people who owned
flocks. It was always a festive occasion, much like our harvest
times in the Midwest. People would gather from all over, a huge
table was spread, and rich provision was made for the workers.
It was a time when hospitality was expected, and David was asking
no more than would be normally expected during this time - that
Nabal extend hospitality to him.

David had a number of young men who followed him. In chapter
22 we are told that when he left the court of Saul there were
young men who were in distress, in debt, and discontented, who
gathered to him and followed him. They were revolutionaries, angry
young men who could easily have become a gang of bandits. They
followed David because they loved him. And David's concern was
to provide for these men, now grown six-hundred-strong They didn't
have sufficient provisions, and so David asked of Nabal that he
supply their needs. Note Nabal's response:

When David's young men came, they
spoke to Nabal according to all these words in David's name;
then they waited. But Nabal answered David's servants, and said,
"Who is David? And who is the son of Jesse? There are many
servants today who are each breaking away from his master. [That is, David is just one more runaway slave. I
owe him nothing!] Shall I then take my bread and my water
and my meat that I have slaughtered for my shearers, and give
it to men whose origin I do not know?" So David's young
men retraced their way and went back; and they came and told
him according to all these words. And David said to his men,
"Each of you gird on his sword." So each man girded
on his sword. And David also girded on his sword, and about four
hundred men went up behind David while two hundred stayed with
the baggage.

Nabal ridiculed the messengers, they went back to David and
recounted the story to him, and David was enraged! He grabbed
his sword, called to his followers to get theirs, and they were
all too eager to comply. They were going to kill Nabal and his
whole family. This is so typical of David. David at this point
in his life was a man driven by his passions. This was his problem
throughout life. He did not have the presumptuousness of Saul,
nor Solomon's tendency to magnify himself and be a despot. David's
problem was that he was impetuous, driven by strong passions.
At one moment he could be the sweet singer of Israel, and the
next moment he was going to break somebody's head! Angry, frustrated,
he was going out to secure his own rights.

This, of course, is what was wrong in David's actions. It is
not wrong to be angry when someone else's rights are at stake.
It was right when David said of Goliath, "Who is this uncircumcised
Philistine, that he should frustrate the armies of the living
God?" He was right, in that instance, because it was God's
honor that was at stake. But he was not right in saying, "Who
is this Nabal, that he should frustrate me?" He was fighting
for his own rights. His indignation and anger were unrighteous.
And he was headed into a situation which could have destroyed
him. It certainly would have marred his conscience to the end
of his days. Verses 14 through 17:

But one of the young men [i.e., one of Nabal's sheepherder] told Abigail,
Nabal's wife, saying, "Behold, David sent messengers from
the wilderness to greet our master, and he scorned them. Yet
they were very good to us, and we were not insulted, nor we miss
anything as long as we went about with them, while we were in
the fields. They were a wall to us both by night and by day,
all the time we were with them tending the sheep. Now therefore
know and consider what you should do, for evil is plotted against
our master and against all his household; and he is such a worthless
man that no one can speak to him."

Literally, he calls him a "son of Belial" - a lawless
man. "No one can tell him anything," he says. "Do
something, or we're all going to lose our lives." We read
in verses 18 through 20 that Abigail took some provisions, loaded
them on donkeys and rode out to meet David and his men. Verses
21 and 22:

Now David had said, "Surely in
vain I have guarded all that this man has in the wilderness,
so that nothing was missed of all that belonged to him; and he
has returned me evil for good. May God do so to the enemies of
David, and more also, if by morning I leave as much as one male
of any who belong to him."

If you want to sense what David's frame of mind was at this
point, note King James translation of his passage or the marginal
reading in the New American Standard Version. David was really
angry, unreasonably angry, muttering to himself as he and his
men were traveling to where Nabal lived. But Abigail intercepts
him with her gift.

And she fell at his feet and said,
"On me alone, my lord, be the blame. And please let your
maidservant speak to you, and listen to the words of your maidservant.
Please do not let my lord pay attention to this worthless man,
Nabal, for as his name is, so is he. Nabal is his name and folly
is with him; but I your maidservant did not see the young men
of my lord whom you sent. Now therefore, my lord, as the Lord
lives, and as your soul lives, since the Lord has restrained
you from shedding blood, and from avenging yourself by your own
hand, now then let your enemies, and those who seek evil against
my lord, be as Nabal. And now let this gift which your maidservant
has brought to my lord be given to the young men who accompany
my lord. Please forgive the transgression of your maidservant;
for the Lord will certainly make for my lord an enduring house,
because my lord is fighting the battles of the Lord, and evil
shall not be found in you all your days. And should anyone rise
up to pursue you and to seek your life, then the life of my lord
shall be bound in the bundle of the living with the Lord your
God . . ."

That is quite a statement! It is found on many tombstones of
ancient Judah: "May the life of my lord be bound in the bundle
of the living with the Lord your God." May your life be bound
up with the Lord's life. Verses 30 and 31:

And it shall come about when the Lord
shall do for my lord according to all the good that He has spoken
concerning you, and shall appoint you ruler over Israel, that
this will not cause grief or a troubled heart to my lord, both
by having shed blood without cause and by my lord having avenged
himself [or, literally, having saved himself. When the Lord shall
deal well with my lord, then remember your maidservant."

This is quite a speech that Abigail makes. In essence she is
saying, "David, you're wrong." In fact she says, "David,
what you are doing is evil. You're trying to save yourself, trying
to avenge yourself. You're trying to seek your own rights, and
what you're doing is not right. When you become king this will
haunt you, it will live in your conscience to the end of your
days. You see, David, your life is bound up with the life of God.
The battle that you are fighting is God's battle; the life that
you're living is God's life. And God will take care of his own.
You don't need to fight yourself, and you don't need to defend
yourself; God will defend you. Let him. Don't take vengeance on
your enemies, let God take vengeance." That is quite a strong
rebuke -- coming from an unknown woman to a man who is soon to
be king of Israel! She is saying to David exactly what Paul says
in Romans 12:

Never pay back evil for evil to anyone.
Respect what is right in the sight of all men. If possible, so
far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men. Never take
your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God,
for it is written, "Vengeance is Mine, I will repay, says
the Lord. But if your enemy is hungry, feed him, and if he is
thirsty, give him a drink; for in so doing you will heap burning
coals upon his head." Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome
evil with good.

That is God's way. It is not the wrath of man which accomplished
the righteousness of God. "Let God defend you, David. He
will take care of you. Your life is bound up with him. Don't defend
yourself. To defend yourself is an evil thing." Those are
strong words of exhortation and correction addressed to David.
She was speaking according to the truth.

But will you note the manner in which these words are addressed?
Because how one says it is as important as what one has to say.
This strong rebuke directed at David is couched in terms which
are gentle. She bows herself before David. She is not trying to
dominate him. She is not coming across in harsh and strident terms,
not berating him, not screaming at him. There is gentleness and
quietness of spirit. And at least twice she says, "David,
forgive my transgression." Now, she is not saying that Nabal's
transgression is her own. She is not identifying herself with
Nabal's sin. She is saying, "David, I don't want to overstep
myself. Forgive me for saying what I have to say, but it has to
be said."

And so she says these hard things, but she says them with love
and tenderness and gentleness, and out of a spirit of concern
for David. I'm sure she was concerned for Nabal. When word came
to her that Nabal and his household were threatened, she had a
concern for Nabal. But in her words to David she indicates a concern
for him also: "David, when you become king you don't want
this on your conscience. It's an evil thing that you're doing;
don't do it." It was out of love and consideration for him.
It wasn't a desire to seek her own will and get her own way, but
rather to see David become the king that God intended him to be.

And this is the kind of ministry that Christian sisters ought
to have in the lives of Christian brothers, be they husbands or
other Christian men. It is a ministry of encouragement, even of
exhortation at times. God intends us to reign, as God intended
David to reign, and we all need help in learning how to reign.
David needed to learn how to restrain himself in situations such
as this, and Abigail came at a time when her ministry in his life
was needed. She taught him, but she did it in a spirit of gentleness
and quietness, and out of a love for him. Note David's reaction:

Then David said to Abigail, "Blessed
be the Lord God of Israel, who sent you this day to meet me,
and blessed be your discernment, and blessed be you, who have
kept me this day from bloodshed, and from avenging myself by
my own hand. Nevertheless, as the Lord God of Israel lives, who
has restrained me from harming you, unless you had come quickly
to meet me, surely there would not have been left to Nabal until
the morning light as much as one male. "So David received
from her hand what she had brought him, and he said to her, "Go
up to your house in peace. See, I have listened to you and granted
your request."

First, David listened to her. He took it. He knew he was wrong.
He saw where his impetuousness was carrying him. The thing which
distinguishes David from Nabal is that Nabal did not listen. Nabal
was a fool. I'm sure that Abigail had tried many times to encourage
him in the same way, but he did not listen. You see, it is sometimes
difficult for men to listen to the exhortation of a Christian
sister. Because of our stubbornness and pride, we are fools. We
don't want to hear. But David listened, and he allowed the Lord
to use this truth to correct his life.

The second thing to note is that Abigail's ministry to David
turned David's eyes to the Lord. He says, in sequence, "Blessed
is the Lord, blessed is your discernment, and blessed are you."
Her ministry was to get David's eyes on the Lord - off himself
and his own anger and his own resources, and onto the Lord, who
would take care of him. And while he could have praised her for
many things, not the least of which were her intelligence and
beauty, he didn't say a word about them. She had turned his attention
to the Lord. She had caused him to praise the Lord. And notice
what he does praise about her. It is not her beauty, not her intelligence;
it is her discernment, her understanding of God's principles.
We read in Proverbs 3 1,

Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain,
But a woman who fears the Lord, she shall be praised.

That is what evokes praise from a man. A wife or a Christian
sister who knows the Lord and knows his word is able to use it
in a discerning way in the life of her husband, to help him grow
to maturity. That is what David praised about Abigail -- her discernment.
In its characteristic way, Proverbs says,

As a ring of gold in a swine's snout,
So is a beautiful woman without discernment.

That is the same Hebrew term for discernment you find here
in this story. There is something very incongruous about a gold
ring in a pig's nose. And there is something very incongruous
about a beautiful woman without spiritual discernment. But David
saw that Abigail was a woman of the Word. She was discerning.
She could lead him to a higher knowledge of God, a greater understanding
and appreciation of the character of God. He praises the Lord
because of it, and he praises her because of her discernment.

There is another thing we need to notice here. In verse 22
David thanks the Lord and thanks Abigail because he has been kept
back from bloodshed and from saving himself. Then in verse 34
he mentions that the Lord God of Israel has restrained him from
harming both her and her household. David was restrained. He learned
at this point, I believe, to let the Lord control him. He recognized
that he wasn't free to do as he pleased. He couldn't run amok,
he couldn't redress the things which had been done against him.
He had to count on the Lord, and the Lord disciplined and restrained
and controlled him. And for David, that was the most valuable
lesson he could learn, because he could not reign as a king until
he had learned to let God reign in his own life. He learned this
lesson from Abigail, and I believe that this was a pivotal point
in David's life.

There is a fourth thing I want you to notice. In the last part
of verse 35 David says, "I have listened to you and granted
your request." The Hebrew says, "I have lifted up your
face." I believe David is saying here that he has exalted
her, given her a place of exaltation. You see, the requirement
of submission can be very galling. It can be seen as demeaning
servilely. But it doesn't have to be that at all. When women take
their God-given place in a man's life, are discerning in the Word,
and use that Word to help him grow, and do it all in gentleness
and meekness, it becomes an exalting experience for them when
he responds to the truth. It is fulfilling, makes their life meaningful,
takes them off the shelf and puts them in a place where they can
be of use in the lives of their Christian brothers to help them
be what God intends them to be. And when David responded to Abigail
it lifted up her countenance in joy and a sense of exaltation.

There may be some question about Abigail's attitude toward
her husband. Was she subject to her husband in circumventing him
and speaking to David? It is probable that Abigail was ignorant
of the full range of truth about submission to her husband. We
need to be careful about judging her actions by the more complete
revelation of this truth in the New Testament.

Her actions were similar to Sarah's when she allowed herself
to be placed in Pharaoh's harem though she was Abraham's wife.
Sarah was unaware of any wrongdoing In fact, she is commended
in 1 Peter 3 because she took her action in obedience to Abraham.
Her action, judged by the New Testament, was clearly wrong. But
she, of course, did not have this additional word on the matter.